User blog:Rich Varney/Week 10
Exhibition Space and change of direction: At our meeting on Tuesday, the team agreed that we should abandon all hope of using the Physics. This led to a feeling of abandoning all hope when we later visited rooms 1013 and 1014 as a team for the first time. We bandied about ideas as to how we could and could not hide the fact that we were in a carpeted underground car park, but it became clear that we were not going to be able to make any serious attempt at this. We have neither the budget nor the time it would require and that is before even considering the logistics of getting the materials we would need into the location. This was undoubtedly the lowest point of the project to date and there were no practical ideas coming forward as what we could do about it. Then from nowhere, the suggestion of embracing the space by changing our concept came forward from Gemma. She suggested setting the party in a mad professor’s office and creating a character that we could use as the basis for this. A mad professor is a fan of Alice in Wonderland and Einstein and decides to throw a tea party. This suddenly sparked enthusiasm across the team and suddenly more suggestions started to come forward. I think it was an inspired idea, it seems so obvious now. Well done to Gemma on coming up with it. It solves the issues of hiding the space and opens up more opportunities for us to include things on the table. There were concerns about making the work we have already been doing fit in with the new narrative so it was decided that we should meet again on Wednesday to review the work items and progress the idea. Gemma drove the meeting on Wednesday where we discussed the new concept and vision. We decided that everything that we have been working on either fits or can be made to fit the new narrative. It was decided to give the professor a back story and create an invitation to his tea party. The professor, who will not have a name, gets otherwise side-tracked and never makes it to his own party. I am delighted at this outcome. I was really worried about the project and team morale on Tuesday, but this has given new hope to us. There is not 100% agreement on every aspect of this change, but it is close to it and we are in a far better place now. Pocket watch time dilation: I have decided on the round version of the cover for the TFT display, it looks far more pleasing, especially since I have spray painted it an attempt to make it look like a cappuccino (my attempts to get a tea look were less than successful). The challenge is now conveying the information required in the small area of screen that is visible. I tried using some of John Tenniel’s illustrations of the tea party which look great on the screen but was struggling to find a way of getting text to fit in with this. I asked Niamh if she would make some suggestions and she has come up with some great mock ups that I can now use as the basis for this. NFC / RFID: My experiments with resin last weekend have successfully produced a “pocket watch” that does not jam the NFC tag. I’m now working on producing a batch of around a dozen of these. I have also ordered some seven segment displays that I can use display the time that a user was at the exhibit. I had the idea of building these into an interactive poster with conductive ink, but may have to fall back from this idea and modify it to something simpler if time does not permit. Category:Blog posts